The New Jersey Department of
Environmental Protection (DEP)
is charged with protecting the
natural environment and those
aspects of human health directly
related to environmental factors.
Historically this has meant
controlling discharges to air,
water and land, and working
to both minimize and remedy
the pollution of these media.
Regulation of releases to the
environment from point sources
like waste discharge pipes and
smokestacks, and the management
of wastes themselves, have been
particular focus areas. It has
become increasingly clear that
protection of the environment
and human health requires a
more comprehensive approach.
Today, the DEP strives to protect
and manage uses of land and
other resources to ensure that
not only future generations
of people can thrive but also
wild plants, animals and their
critical habitats. The DEP continues
its efforts to preserve environmental
resources including air, water,
land and healthy ecosystems.

Periodic
assessments of environmental
conditions can provide insight
into the effectiveness of the
DEP’s current efforts and offer
guidance for future efforts.
In monitoring and reporting
on environmental conditions,
it is useful to focus on measures,
or indicators, of environmental
health. Environmental indicators
are quantitative measures of
conditions and trends that are
used to assess the state of
the environment and natural
resources and, where possible,
to gauge progress towards specific
goals. Indicators are necessary
because the condition of an
environmental factor, such as
water or air quality, is often
made up of many different components
and it can be difficult or impossible
to directly measure them all.
The choice of measures is also
limited to those environmental
parameters for which there are
accurate and appropriate data,
preferably long-term data that
can clarify and illustrate any
trends that may exist.

Since
1998, the DEP has been publishing
periodic “State of The Environment”
reports that provide general
information on trends and conditions
for a variety of environmental
factors that, together, comprise
an overall assessment of our
state’s environmental health.
In this year’s report, “New
Jersey’s Environment Trends”,
forty-eight chapters are presented.
Each chapter describes a specific
area in which the DEP has been
working to improve conditions
and presents a specific environmental
measure or category of measurements
meaningful in gauging the current
status of the environment in
New Jersey. This report was
released in early 2006. Some
chapters have been updated,
as indicated.

Some
of these measures have been
discussed in earlier DEP reports
and the DEP believes it is important
to continue tracking them. Others
are new. Reasonably good data
exist for each of these measures.
Where goals or end points are
associated with a measure, these
are presented. Some goals are
expressed formally in laws or
rules. For example, a clear-cut
goal noted in the chapter “Ozone”
is compliance with the federal
ozone standard. Other measures
can be compared with assumed
or implied goals, such as a
stable or increasing population
of a wildlife species like the
bald eagle. For example, in
the chapter “Wildlife Populations:
Bald Eagle,” the recently increasing
population of these birds can
be considered a positive development,
despite the lack of a formal
goal of a specific number of
breeding pairs of these birds.

When
compared with explicit or implicit
goals, some trends are encouraging
and show clear evidence of progress.
Others reflect situations that
appear to be worsening and challenges
that lie ahead. Many trends
reflect both current and past
conditions and are subject to
changes in the future due to
factors that are, in some cases,
poorly understood and beyond
the direct control of the DEP.

There
are a variety of ways that these
chapters could be organized.
No single framework suffices
because environmental systems
are interrelated, overlapping,
and dynamic. For example, water
quality is affected not only
by discharges from point sources
but by atmospheric deposition
of pollutants from local, regional
and national sources. Water
quality is also affected by
land use and, in some cases,
by factors that affect water
quantity, which in turn may
be affected by global climate
changes, which are in turn affected
by human activity in a variety
of ways, and so on.

You
may download or review individual
chapters of the report as discreet
PDF documents using the index
of chapters provided in the
adjacent table. In addition,
a reference matrix is provided to help explain
the relationship between different
topic areas in order to view
all pertinent chapters of the
report.

In
the matrix, the chapters are
listed alphabetically by title
alongside one or more major
focus categories. The major
categories in the matrix are
air, water, land use, regional
& global issues, public
health, pollution prevention
& solid waste, and wildlife.
This matrix can help a reader
to find those chapters that
relate to a particular interest
or subject area. Chapters that
pertain to a particular category
will have an “X” in the column
corresponding to that category
or categories. For example,
chapters on air toxics, atmospheric
deposition (two chapters), climate
change, greenhouse gas emissions,
mercury emissions, NOx and VOCs,
ozone, PM2.5, pollution prevention,
radon, site remediation, solid
waste and recycling, and vehicle
miles traveled are marked as
being especially relevant to
the major category of “air”.
Only the most obvious relationships
are identified in the matrix.
Other chapters may also be relevant
to some degree because many
environmental factors are interrelated.
However, a first look at the
marked chapters should help
most readers focus on the specifics
of their areas of interest.